Holy Cross in the South

THE SOUTHERN PROVINCE

A PERSPECTIVE

PROLOGUE

Here is a broad perspective of the Southern Province. How it got to where it is today. A definitive study awaits the professional historian.

Present activities of Holy Cross in the South are a far cry from 1849. In that year Holy Cross Priests, Brothers and Sisters landed in New Orleans. In 1870 Father Sorin appeared on the scene in Central Texas. Much has happened since then. Much is the same. The courage and dynamism of those early days is found in the thrust of the Southern Province Today. Once Holy Cross battled with malaria and cholera on the banks of the Mississippi. It survived the agony of the Civil War. It met the challenge of a thousand and one difficulties. The times demanded heroic dedication. Today the same brave, pioneering spirit animas religious in the Southern Province.

The situation has changed. The drive remains. Basic needs of people are the same in Bangladesh or in the heart of Texas. Our religious of Holy Cross in southlands shelter and instruct the young. The visit the sick and the lonely. They bring comfort to prisoners, feed the hungry, clothe the naked. Our priests now as yesterday champion the cause of the oppressed. They welcome refugees. They preach liberation messages as they have always done. The dynamic spirit of Father Moreau is evident. The Southern Province is young in years. It is mature in vision and accomplishment.

This presentation is brief. It is the fruit of a hurried reading of letters, personal memoirs, published accounts, provincial reports dealing with the growth of the Southern Province. It is a sketch of highlights in the development of the Province. The written commends and observations by our beloved Father Tom Culhane are in a class by themselves.

Add to this--personal experience. My first assignment as a priest was teaching at St. Edward's University in Austin. From that vantage point I saw missionary zeal in action. I saw heroism! I have known so many of the protagonists, deceased and living, in this apostolic drama of the South. A special privilege was my meeting with Father Patrick O'Reilly. This learned, gentle, apostolic giant sparked revival in the Mexican American apostolate three quarters of a century ago.

BEGINNINGS

The roots of the Southern Province go back to the arrival of Holy Cross in Louisiana (1849) and in Texas (1870). In the early years in Austin, Holy Cross priests were stationed either at St. Mary's Parish or at St. Edward's School. From there, in response to many calls for assistance, they extended to their ministry through Central Texas with its large Hispanic population. Father Daniel Spillard offered Mass in Taylorville (now the City of Taylor). Father Peter Franciscus rode horseback two days from Belleville to Burlington to administer to the Catholics in the area. Father John Lauth was the first priest to visit Westphalia. Holy Cross priests served Rockdale. Fathers John and Peter Lauth founded St. Mary's, Temple, Texas, Holy Trinity at Corn Hill was helped out as far as Frelsburg and Houston. Like the pioneer priests in Indiana who worked out from Notre Dame, the Holy Cross priests exercised their ministry at St. Mary's and St. Edwards in Austin as a base.

It was in 1906 that the apostolate to the Mexican Americans began to take shape. Now it forms a great part of the Province activity. The story begins with Father Patrick O'Reilly. An Irishman. Born in Dublin. Educated at the University of Salamanca. A scholar and master of eight languages! He entered the Congregation of Holy Cross in the United States.

Stricken with a serious case of tuberculosis, he was sent to the mild climate of Central Texas. Physicians offered little hope of his recovery. Father O'Reilly refused to accept the medical verdict. He looked about him and saw the hundreds of Mexican-American families in urgent need of priests. He wanted desperately to help them. Even when under the doctor's care at Seton Infirmary, he was brought out on a cut or in a wheelchair to minister to dying Mexican-Americans. In the face of this desperate Hispanic situation, Father O'Reilly offered himself to Our Lady of Guadalupe. He promised to dedicate his priestly life to the service of Mexican-Americans. If only he had his health! Immediately he began to recover. He made his desire known to the Bishop of Galveston, Most Reverend N.A. Gallagher. The Bishop joyfully accepted his offer. In a letter of authorization to Father O'Reilly, he wrote: "I give you for your field all of Texas east of the Colorado."

When Father O'Reilly recovered from tuberculosis he became chaplain of Seton Hospital in Austin. For twenty years, after an early Mass for the Sisters, he traveled to settlements and towns where Mexican-Americans lived. He celebrated two Masses in different locations. After the last Mass, in early afternoon, he broke his fast with sandwiches and coffee that he had brought from the hospital. By 1937 three priests were celebrating Mass in this territory and beyond. Today there are twelve churches and nine priests in that area.

Catholics in Austin, money was raised to build a small church for the Mexican-Americans. It was located on land donated by the Butler family at the northwest corner of Fifth and Guadalupe Streets. At last! A spiritual center for the Mexican -American community! With a Spanish-speaking priest in charge, the parish included three thousand souls. Later Fathers Peter Forestall and Walter O'Donnell, teachers at St. Edward's, would help. From Austin, Father O'Reilly visited Mexican-American families in Georgetown and Round Rock. Later a Canadian Holy Cross priest, Father Angus MacDonald, despite declining health, devoted himself to the Mexican Apostolate. A touching tribute was paid to him by an elderly parishioner in Andice who said: "We didn't understand his Spanish but we knew that he loved us."

A new era of missionary work began in 1935. The Holy Cross ordination class of that year was dubbed "the missionary class"! Several of the newly-ordained were assigned either to Bengal or to missionary work in Texas. Father James W. Donahue, Superior General at the time, was mission-minded. He determined to put new life into the Mexican-American missions. The first continent of newly-ordained priests destined for the work comprised Father Thomas Culhane, Father Frank Weber, and Father Philip Schaerf. Soon afterwards came Father Alfred Mendez (later Bishop of Aricebo in Puerto Rico), Father Joseph Houser and Father Fred Schmidt. Father Thomas Culhane made a deep impact throughout the area, especially at Round Rock and at Georgetown, TX, site of a Baptist university (Southwestern). A generation before ecumenism these magnificent priests made valiant thrusts. Under the leadership of Father Mendez they preached up and down the land to raise money for apostolic work. It was an evolution of the apostolate which Father O'Reilly had so heroically begun.

Father Donahue had been Superior General (1926-1938). After his term of office he was asked where he would like to work and live. He chose Central Texas. In the area were large numbers of Hispanics deeply devoted to the Church, to Our Lord, and his Blessed Mother. They had no priest to see their to their spiritual and temporal needs. For a time, Father Donahue lived with Father Frank Weber in the rectory of Holy Cross Church in Austin. Later poor health obliged him to reside in the infirmary at St. Edward's University. He had there more freedom of action. Every last Holy Cross Brother and Priest in the South loved hi! He and Brother Lambert spent their time discovering Mexican-Americans who lived in out of the way places, off farm roads in all of Travis County south of the Colorado River. Their poverty was extreme. Their faith could merit the praise Christ gave the centurion: "I have not seen such faith in Israel." Until they met Father Donahue these people (Mexican-Americans) had enjoyed few contacts with priests. The universal language of love which he spoke made up for any deficiencies in his Spanish.

The self-sacrifice of these young priests, their complete dedication paid off. Within a few years a cluster of churches sprang up in and about Austin: San José, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, La Luz (later Dolores) in Austin. Parishes were established in Round Rock and Lampasas. Churches sprang up in Andice, Garfield, Bertram, Leander and Marble Falls. Most of these churches served the Mexican-Americans. Later, with the advent of the automobile, some were integrated into larger parishes. When Bishop Louis Reicher was named Ordinary of the newly-created diocese of Austin, there was not a single diocesan priest in the City of Austin! The Paulists at St. Austin's, the Oblates at Our Lady of Guadalupe and the priests of Holy Cross saw to the Catholic needs in Central Texas. The burden of caring for the Catholics in the northern part of the Diocese of Galveston fell to Holy Cross. Father Mendez asked Mr. Kervick, header of the Department of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame to draw plans for the mission churches. Mr. Kervick put to work the seniors in architecture. From this project a unique mission building style evolved which attracted national attention in the Architects Magazine. ("Holy Cross One Hundred Years," p. 12)